Judge reserves decision on the stay for lawsuit over Bergen County police, sheriff merger

A judge reserved decision Tuesday in a lawsuit between Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and the freeholders after hearing attorneys each accuse the other side of trying to “hijack county government.”

Bergen County Superior Court Judge Menelaos W. Toskos said he would have a decision by Jan. 17 on whether to temporarily halt the freeholders from merging the county police into the Sheriff’s Office until after the case is decided.

Donovan, who opposes the merger, also seeks to block the freeholders’ attempt to rewrite the county code in a way that explicitly spells out their right to reorganize county government.

“To me, it’s not as simple as the two of you are advocating,” Toskos told Donovan’s attorney Thomas Scrivo and Freeholder Counsel Edward Florio after hearing their arguments for just over an hour.

Toskos said the merger ordinance that the freeholders adopted by a 6-1 vote in October also raised some related issues.

Specifically, he wondered if the freeholders can order the county executive to negotiate an agreement with the sheriff on how the merger would be carried out.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal battles between Donovan and the board over who wields what powers when it comes to setting policy in county government.

Scrivo argued that the two freeholder resolutions on the code rewrite and the police merger were an attempt to shift the powers that state law gives to the county executive.

“The freeholder board cannot do anything to diminish the power of the county executive,” he said.

He noted that until the freeholders did their re-write of the county code — without any input from Donovan — it had been largely unchanged in the 27 years after the voters approved the county executive form of government.

“What’s clear ... is the intent of the freeholder board to hijack county government and put those powers into the freeholder board,” he said.

Florio countered with an argument he said was rooted in fifth-grade civics classes on checks and balances and the separations of powers in government.

“The county executive does not want to concede that the law says what it does — that the legislative body has the power to legislate,” Florio said.

He argued that the law does not require that the freeholders vote only on re-organization plans that the county executive proposes.

“The freeholder board legislates and the county executive executes. That’s the only way the law can be interpreted.” Florio said, turning a chart illustrating the branches of county government upside down.

“In fact, it’s the county executive who’s tried to reinvent the wheel and turn on its head the manner in which county government has functioned,” he said.

The lawsuit is the third that Donovan has filed against the board. Toskos ruled in her favor in the two earlier cases, however, both have been appealed.